Monday newspaper round-up: Covid fraud, energy bills, National Grid

More than 1m small businesses may be paying energy bills significantly above market rates after becoming trapped in long-term contracts fixed when prices reached a historical peak last year. Trade groups representing businesses from metalworkers to convenience stores have joined forces to warn of a “perilous situation”. – Guardian

The former head of Britain’s financial crime prosecutor has said “red flags were ignored” in the rush to distribute taxpayer-funded emergency loans to businesses during the pandemic, and questioned whether fraud was taken seriously by the government. Parliament’s spending watchdog estimates fraud and error were likely to have cost the UK government as much as £16bn across the various Covid loan schemes, including those for small businesses. – Guardian

National Grid is preparing to pay people to reduce their electricity usage at peak times again next winter as it draws up plans to keep the lights on without emergency back-up coal plants. Millions of pounds were paid to households that took part in the “demand flexibility service” last winter by rescheduling energy-intensive activities such as cooking or using washing machines. – The Times

The CBI’s board is facing criticism from senior industry figures for its decision to turn to insiders to steer it through misconduct allegations, with the appointment of Rain Newton-Smith facing fresh scrutiny from politicians and business leaders. Writing in The Times today, Ann Francke, chief executive of the Chartered Management Institute, said the lobby group had “remained within its own boardroom to identify what actually needs to change, and how”. – The Times

One of Britain’s biggest outsourcing companies was tonight scrambling to figure out if sensitive data had been stolen from its systems after a Russian-speaking cyber gang posted a cache of documents online. Capita, which holds public sector contracts worth billions of pounds including enforcing the BBC licence fee, said it had “not been able to confirm” whether the files posted online were taken from its systems. – Telegraph